Opinion
October 11, 1983
In a personal injury action, defendants appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Goldstein, J.), dated September 8, 1982, which, inter alia, granted the plaintiff's motion to remove the within action from the Civil Court to the Supreme Court, and for leave to serve an amended complaint increasing the ad damnum clause from $10,000 to $250,000. Order affirmed, with costs. Plaintiff's time to serve an amended verified complaint is extended until 20 days after service upon him of a copy of the order to be made hereon, with notice of entry. The trend in this court has been to stress prejudice to the defendant over mere delay as a basis for denying a motion to increase the ad damnum clause of a complaint (compare Strobel v Dailey, 84 A.D.2d 748, and Brewster v City of New York, 78 A.D.2d 667, with Posselt v Rosa, 60 A.D.2d 854, and London v Moore, 32 A.D.2d 543), and in this case no actual prejudice to the defendants has been demonstrated. Moreover, leave to increase the ad damnum clause has been permitted based solely upon an update ( Cardone v University Hosp., 78 A.D.2d 645; Hillenbrand v 3801 Review Place, 72 A.D.2d 554) or a re-evaluation of the original injuries ( Wagner v Huntington Hosp., 65 A.D.2d 771) where, as here, the proof is sufficient to warrant an increase (see Koupash v Grand Union Co., 34 A.D.2d 695; Bird v Board of Educ., 29 A.D.2d 812; cf. Beras v Beras, 82 A.D.2d 843; Carlisle v County of Nassau, 75 A.D.2d 593). Under these circumstances, it cannot be said that Special Term abused its discretion in granting the motion. Damiani, J.P., Gulotta, O'Connor and Rubin, JJ., concur.